The Firebird

‘’Tis thee alone can kill or cure,’ he sang to Anna next. ‘Send me one gentle smile.’

But she could not, although the others did. She could not smile; she could but sit there silently and feel the words and wish that she did not, because it seemed as though he sang for her alone, when at the end his gaze returned full-force to hers.

‘If I may not enjoy the bliss,

Bestow on me a parting kiss,

I’ll wander all my days.’

The sound of clapping jarred her back into reality, reminding her that there were others with them in the room. She blinked, and roused herself enough to pull her gaze away from Edmund, to find Mary Gordon watching her with undisguised surprise, and a small, knowing smile that Anna looked away from too.

But Mary would not let her escape with such ease. Later on, when they’d all gathered into the lobby to say their farewells, Mary caught Anna’s elbow and drew her aside and said, low and delighted, ‘But I thought you hated him.’

‘Hated who?’

Mary just gave her a look that would not be fooled, and with a kiss and embrace said, ‘You must tell me all, the next time I come visit.’

To be so discovered by Mary, who knew her so well and could read her expressions, was not unexpected, but Anna still felt thrown off balance, and when Mr Taylor was saying goodbye to her and she saw Edmund himself looking on with a frown, Anna could not remove herself quickly enough from the lobby, relieved that the general had, at the last minute, called Edmund aside for a private talk, so she would not have to wait to farewell him.

The air in the yard was much warmer than that in the stone-walled house, but there was light and the feeling of freedom that washed through her troubling thoughts like a tonic. At least, for the minutes she spent there alone.

When she heard the door open and close, she instinctively straightened her back, her arms folding as both a defence and a means of protection. Not waiting for him to approach, she turned round.

‘Was there something you wanted, then, Mr O’Connor?’

‘A great many things, Mistress Jamieson. But for the moment, my purpose was only to find you.’

‘And why would you go to such trouble?’

He said, ‘’Twas no trouble at all, for I knew where to look.’ With a glance round the yard and a faint upward lift of his chin to the clouds he remarked, ‘This is your bit of sky, is it not? Where you’d fly, had your wings not been clipped.’

‘You talk nonsense.’

His own arms crossed over the width of his chest. ‘Mr Taylor will do more than clip those wings for you. He’ll tie them.’

‘You’ve no right—’

‘I need no right,’ he cut her off, his voice gone hard, ‘to tell you what a fool could see, and what you seem determined not to.’

Anna stood her ground in all defiance, though she hugged herself more tightly. ‘Do you seek to provoke me, sir?’

‘Aye, Mistress Jamieson. That is exactly what I seek to do.’ Edmund took a step closer. ‘For it’s when you’re provoked that you show your true nature, the one you would hide from the world and your tame Mr Taylor.’

‘He is not—’ She cut herself off that time, taking care to calm her temper. ‘He is not mine.’

‘Not yet, but he would like to be. And you encourage him, allowing him to call on you and be your escort.’

‘This is a small community,’ she told him, ‘and it would soon be talked about were I to snub him. You have been my escort also. Do you claim I then encourage you?’

His mouth curved faintly. ‘Never that.’

‘Good, for in truth I only act as any other lady would, in the same circumstances.’

Edmund took another step, his eyes fixed on her face. ‘You are no lady.’

Anna felt the sting of that as though she had been slapped. Incredulous, she stared at him a moment before striking back. ‘And you, sir, are no gentleman.’

His own impatience briefly flared as he continued his approach, his gaze increasingly intense. ‘You think I meant that as an insult? Faith, it was a compliment.’

‘To say I’m not a lady?’

‘Aye.’ He was too close, and well he knew it, pushing her as always, stopping just beyond her bounds of comfort. With his dark head tilted down so he could look at her, he said, ‘You are more rare than that. You are a fighter, like myself.’

She was not sure which she found most unsettling – having him so near, or knowing he could see so clearly to her core.

She somehow found her voice. ‘Well, if I am, it is for naught. A woman cannot be a soldier.’

‘Not a soldier. No, you are not that. A soldier fights by someone else’s orders, but a fighter,’ Edmund told her, ‘answers only to his passions, and his heart. And you have both in great abundance, Mistress Jamieson. I saw it clearly, so I did, the day you took on Captain Deane. You told me I should watch his face, remember? But I watched your own, instead.’

‘Oh, aye? And what did it reveal to you?’

The corners of his mouth turned upward once again, if briefly, at the surge of her defensiveness. ‘I do believe,’ he told her, ‘had you been a man that day, and in possession of a sword, you would have run the captain through.’

She could not argue that, and so she simply stood with her face tilted up to his, and gave no answer.

In the silence Edmund grew more sober. ‘Do you honestly believe he’ll make you happy? Christ, you cannot even be yourself when he is here. You barely spoke three words together all this afternoon.’